‘We now have species of catfish that can grow up to 10kg’

How can farmers make good money from cat fish farming?For cat fish farming, you need to get very good species of cat fish stock for your farm, and if you are a new farmer into the business, you need foods and fish that are standard juvenile, don’t go for fingerling fish. Don’t stock a lot […]

How can farmers make good money from cat fish farming?
For cat fish farming, you need to get very good species of cat fish stock for your farm, and if you are a new farmer into the business, you need foods and fish that are standard juvenile, don’t go for fingerling fish. Don’t stock a lot of fish when you don’t have enough money to feed them. Cat fish are highly proteinous consuming fish. For them to grow, they like to feed continuously so that they will get maximum growth and apart from that, when you don’t feed them very well, they lose weight and before they recover from that, it will take a long period. So the problem you will incur from catfish pond will be as a result of lack of money, bad water and basically poor management.
In terms of growth rate, are there catfish species that do better?
Actually, Nigerian farmers know about three species of catfish-the clarias, the heterobranchus and the hybrid. We are cross breeding clarias and heterobranchus to get hybrid. If you are into clarias, you can stock many in a pond but feeding is very important, water management is very crucial. The hybrid is the cross between clarias and heterobranchus. It grows very well because they are hybrid. They need feeding and good water management. The last one is the heterobranchus. They don’t like to be many in a pond because they grow up to 10 kilogrammes or more. Most farmers don’t go for that because even after production, they can only be sold for the money bags. Not everybody can afford to buy heterobranchus when they are matured. There are people who appreciate it because they are even physically attractive and the taste is very sweet. I will encourage fish farmers to also go into other species of catfish that are available.
Do you produce those three species that you mentioned?
Yes we do. We sell to farmers.
Which species can you advise farmers to breed?
I will advise them to consider all species of catfish. It all depends on how much you have to feed them. The cost of feeding claria is there, though you can stock as much as possible in a pond. The heterobranchus feed little, but you cannot stock many in a pond because they grow bigger and therefore need a lot of space. You can feed heterobranchus with virtually anything. I have seen farms in Nasarawa, Warri, in Delta State, that are using local materials to feed their heterobranchus species. Many people are devising various methods of feeding them. I will advise that no matter what you do, try and add some protein into it.